3/12/2009 @ 6:00AM

Twitter Land: Does Your Brand Belong There?

Jenny Cisney has 3,833 followers on Twitter. What do those people want to learn from Cisney in her 140-character “tweets”? They like hearing about Cisney’s travels, which the photographer-loving party-goer chirps about in as many as 70 posts a week, like this one after the recent Academy Awards: “Heading over to the Slumdog after-party to get some pics of the gift lounge … ” Cisney, 33, made sure to mention that the swag included Kodak Zi6 video cameras.

Cisney works for
Eastman Kodak
. The Rochester, N.Y., company hopes its “chief blogger” will inject a little razzle-dazzle into the 121-year-old brand. She is among thousands of employees who use Twitter to communicate with consumers on behalf of marketers like Kodak. The companies aim to connect with customers and cast their brands as cutting-edge by embracing the Twittersphere.

At Dunkin’ Donuts, “Dunkin’ Dave”–that’s Dave Puner, 35–posts as many as 12 tweets a day during the workweek to 9,589 followers, or people who are signed up to receive his messages. His posts are laid-back, uncensored riffs on the weather, songs that contain coffee lyrics and thoughts about his own caffeine addiction. His easygoing Twitter tone is supposed to mirror the “average Joe” Dunkin’ Donuts seeks to attract.

“We talked a lot about what our voice should be,” says Margery Myers, the senior vice president of communications at the Canton, Mass., company. “Dave has a very dry sense of humor and he’s comfortable expressing himself online.”

San Francisco-based Twitter is a natural tool for some personalities, such as Shaquille O’Neal, and cult brands that want to broadcast their doings. For quirky and informal Jet Blue, the Twitter format is perfect for delivering product news. The airline, which uses Twitter to promote deals and suggest travel tips, has 154,663 followers.

Whole Foods
, meanwhile, uses Twitter to keep the 209,436 Whole Foods fans (out of 2.6 million Twitter users) in the know about new offerings. It also uses the free microblogging site to respond to questions from health-obsessed customers, such as: “Is it true you don’t carry anything in the store with high fructose corn syrup?” And
Starbucks
recently dished on its new instant coffee, VIA. (“If you’re curious where the name VIA came from, it was named after Don Valencia, the head of R&D in our early years.”)

All good fun. But can yakking it up on Twitter boost sales?
Dell
claims that it has sold over $1 million worth of refurbished computers thanks to its “DellOutlet” Twitter page, which has 153,527 followers.
Comcast
says that through its Twitter site, Comcast Cares (11,386 followers), and other online hubs, it has addressed 18,000 customer queries.

Still, hobnobbing on the Twittersphere can invite trouble. James Andrews, a vice president at public relations firm Ketchum Interactive, traveled to Memphis, Tenn., from Atlanta in January to meet with
FedEx
, one of his top clients. He tweeted: “True confession, but I’m in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say ‘I would die if I had to live here!’ ” Someone at FedEx saw Andrews’ tweet, and sent him a scathing e-mail, copying some top execs at FedEx. People trashed Andrews on Twitter, and FedEx sent him an e-mail expressing disappointment with his “ tweet.” Both Ketchum and Andrews apologized; Andrews kept his job.

Another “oops”: on March 3, candy maker Skittles scrapped its Web site and, for one day, replaced it with a real-time, uncensored Twitter feed. The Twitter page displayed any post that included the word “skittles,” which led to some negative posts about the brand. Skittles later re-directed the site to Facebook and Wikipedia.

In August, “Janet” at
Exxon Mobil
in Irving, Texas, used Twitter to answer questions about the company’s policies and to comment on its philanthropic activities. She pointed out: “… did you know that the Valdez spill wasn’t even one of the top 10 worst spills in history? Like the Nowruz Oil Field spill in ’80.” Turns out, Janet didn’t work for Exxon Mobil–which, to date, hasn’t joined Twitter–and the company didn’t know that she existed until a newspaper called to ask about her.

Marketers like that Twitter isn’t obtrusive. Users select the people–and brands–they want to follow. Companies have an audience that has already shown an affinity for what they sell. Their challenge is to figure out what to do with that connection. Jeremiah Owyang, who insists Twitter isn’t a marketing fad, says some companies aren’t ready for the online dialogue that needs to monitored and maintained constantly. He says, “They have to be ready to be part of a two-way conversation that changes in real time.”